G Train Extension Saved!

The MTA has decided not to eliminate the G train extension once construction is finished on the F/G line; North Brooklyn District Leader Lincoln Restler, who started the first of several petitions to save the extension, announced the news on his Facebook page.

Since the summer of 2009, the G train has traveled five stations farther south, to Church Avenue in Kensington. But when construction was complete, the MTA planned to cut back service, making the G train’s terminus Smith-Ninth Street again, preventing riders from making the connection from the R train one stop south at Fourth Avenue, and forcing commuters from Park Slope and Windsor Terrace to make a transfer if they wanted to travel to Bed-Stuy or Greenpoint.

But Brooklyn straphangers by the thousands signed petitions and, probably more importantly, rode the goddamn thing, boosting ridership by almost 5,000 people per weekday.

The G train extension restores G train service in Brooklyn to its original, pre-1978 route.